With novice knowledge on audio engineering can somewhat help me with lamens terms in app store plug-ins which one should i be lookin to purchase first as far as bieng the most useful in editing rap vocals & help me understaand what that plug in. Does

The ProQ EQ
Is a must and there's some demos and tips on YouTube about It that are worth watching
It's more of a fine tuning when mixing eq tool more Than anything but very handy and easy To get the hang of

I have a couple of suggestions to offer, although I'm not absolutely answering your question!

When you say 'editing' I assume you mean that very loosely, because strictly speaking editing is to do with cutting up recordings to assemble a great sequence of bits. That is something you would do in the multitrack waveform view. But I guess edit can maybe also mean generally fixing everything up. So where to start with that?

Firstly I would recommend starting with imagining how you want your performance to sound. There is no 'Make it sound brilliant' button, but there are loads of tools to help you achieve what ever brilliant vibe you can imagine.

There is a lot built in to the app itself which can help you a great deal. I would recommend that you take a close look at the 'channel strip' which you see by clicking the FX button, assuming you are not yet familiar with the Expander/Gate, EQ, Compressor and Insert Effects.

Whatever uses I suggest for these, other folks may offer very different ideas. Here are a few starting points:

Think of a real world gate which has a spring to keep it shut. Depending on how powerful the spring, it will be easier or harder to get through the gate. The gate might keep you out unless you push it hard. A signal gate works like that: you might set it so that breaths, sniffles, rustles of clothing, general background noise can't get through, but a loud clear voice can. That'll clean up your recording.

EQ is tone controls. Hopefully your mic sounds kinda OK without much EQ, but it may sound a bit thin or a bit murky. More often, you may find that loud breaths or a rapper's 'Huh!' kick out a huge bass undertone that was unintended. Sometimes 'S' sounds come out all hissy and ugly. EQ can help fix this stuff, though you are best off if you don't need to fix anything!

EQ can also be used creatively, such as making a voice sound like it came down the telephone or other tonal effects.

To understand the EQ in Auria you can Google 'parametric eq', 'high-pass filter', 'low-pass filter'.

A compressor is your great friend. Some vocalists don't control their volume too well. An occasional loud shout might go way over level into nasty distortion, and turning down to avoid that might make the rest of the vocal too quiet. A compressor softens the spikes in level, with the overall effect of creating less difference between loud and quiet, and much less difficulty in setting levels. It can be used much more artistically than that, but this is a starting point. A side effect of a compressor is to make background noise more prominent (because it creates less contrast between loud and quiet). Using a gate beforehand can help cut out such noise before it reaches the compressor.

Insert effects give you reverbs, which are great for creating vibe: they can make it sound like the vocal was recorded in a prison cell or a stadium depending on the settings. There are two reverbs available, a basic one and a 'convolution' reverb which uses 'samples' of real room's reverbs. The basic reverb in Auria is one which I find rather disappointing. The convolution reverb can sound good, though if you use different ones on different tracks you'll soon run out of processing power. Putting a vocal through one will cause you no problems though, and you can put lots of tracks through just one reverb if you use it as a 'Aux' effect instead of an insert (set Aux effects at the far right end of the desk, send to them using Aux knobs on each channel). You can buy lots more convolution reverb room sounds by in-app purchase. These are called 'IR' files, and you may well find some of those a good early purchase once you have tried the built-in sounds out.

You can insert more than reverbs. Echo is, well, echo, which can be very effective either throughout or just as a striking effect at chosen moments. Retune can, I believe, help fix the pitch of melodic vocals. Chorus tries to create a 'multitracked' effect.

Google will tend to offer lots of advice and explanation: search for things like 'using a compressor on vocals'.

The in-app purchases are mostly more advanced variants of the above or things not directly to do with vocals. Once you figure out the channel strip you'll be a lot clearer about how the in-app purchases might help you. For example, there are alternative EQs and a more 'vintage' sounding compressor.

I hope this is useful info. Above all, though, try to figure what you want and then set out to get there. It ultimately tends to be much harder to have a great idea than it is to record it!

Last edited by robdean on Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

Thanx man that was alot of help and yes i did make the mistake in using editing when i guess i meant mixing and mastering? Whatever the case i appreciate putting those (eq compressor etc) under better explanation. I stay pretty up to date as far as how the ipad can be used in many studio quality ways for music but when it comes to terms im completely lost

Its annoying to want to take advantage of the technology but feel like when it comes down to eq shit i find my self turning knobs listening out for what it does but at the same time being unsure if im makin my vocals sound worse or am i actually doin it right
I dont have the time nor the money to take a class on the matter so im stuck with the uncertainty so any more subjects as far as eq & the plugin you can explain in a way an idiot would understand im all ears..or...eyyyes but yea thankx man!

Quick question when i import audio (instrumental to record over via dropbox) what is it that determines the tempo or speed of playback ill go thru that long process of importing the instru to a track ill press play & the instru will play in either chipmunk mode
Or super slow i noticed when i switched between different sample rates 44-48-96 it 44 was slow & 96 was fast but im in 48 not and im still gettin chipmunks what do i dooo???

The sample rate is fundamentally a part of your original recording. All digital audio has a 'sample rate', which is essentially the number of snapshots per second which were taken of the original audio.

Every bit of audio in a project should be in the same sample rate. Higher rates offer more fidelity but the files take more space and the mixes more processing power. 44.1 is by no means 'bad' (it's the rate used on CDs) and is in fact a sensible choice when you are learning the ropes or maximum fidelity is not a crucial issue. Mixing sample rates messes up pitch and speed. 'Chipmunks' is likely a 44.1 file played back at 48. Try re-importing the original file to a 44Khz project. I use a free utility called MediaInfo which tells me exactly the format of any audio or video file I plan on using. MediaInfo is a PC utility, but I suspect it is cross-platform. You won't get it for iOS but likely there are versions for OSx and Linux. If you need to combine loops that have different sample rates, some will have to be 'resampled' to match the others. I use PC software on the rare occasions I resample, but Google will show you the way!

Adjusting the pitch/tempo of samples/loops is a whole other thing. It's not my area at all, as I play/record stuff myself rather than sample it, but I don't believe Auria has dedicated tools for fixing up loops in that way. If I'm wrong I expect someone will pitch in and tell us both how. Otherwise, maybe someone can suggest a good app for doing the job: I know they are out there and am sure many will export perfectly well to Auria.